Cornyn pitches NRA-backed mental health bill

Published 3:32 pm, Thursday, August 6, 2015

The phone data dragnet has split GOP senators in several states including Texas, where Sen. John Cornyn, left, differs from Sen. Ted Cruz, who voted to halt the practice.﻿

The phone data dragnet has split GOP senators in several states including Texas, where Sen. John Cornyn, left, differs from Sen. Ted Cruz, who voted to halt the practice.﻿

Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Staff

Cornyn pitches NRA-backed mental health bill

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WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is the latest to add to a surge of mental health action in Congress that targets gun violence with a bill supported by the National Rifle Association.

The bill, which Cornyn announced Wednesday, would incentivize states to add mental health information to the national background check system for purchasing guns. States that regularly update their information would be rewarded with an increase in law enforcement grants, while states that do not could see those funds slashed.

"This legislation respects and preserves the constitutional rights of people under the Second Amendment of the Constitution, but also recognizes that our mental health safety net has big holes in it," Cornyn said in a call with reporters Thursday.

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The Texas senator's announcement came Wednesday, the same day that a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, David Montano, stormed a Tennessee movie theater armed with a hatchet, pepper spray and a pellet gun.

Under federal law, people who have been determined "mentally defective" by court adjudication or have been committed to a mental institution are prohibited from obtaining firearms, but it is not required for states to send those records to the national database.

Currently, veterans cannot purchase guns if they are disqualified for mental health reasons by the Veterans Affairs Department. But Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said his bill would require a court adjudication to bar veterans from doing so.

The bill prompted reaction from advocates for stricter regulations, like those of Everytown for Gun Safety, which on Thursday called Cornyn's bill the "gun lobby's insufficient answer" to gun violence.

Still, the bill is backed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and Treatment Advocacy Center, among a string of other organizations. It's part of a recent push by lawmakers to prevent gun violence by ramping up the country's mental health system, sidestepping the fractious debate over gun laws themselves.

"What we've tried to do is to find a narrow consensus where we can actually make progress in this area and, like I say, provide an additional safety net for people," Cornyn said.